gown

on tuesday i had an appointment with a specialist at trention hospital. i'd been referred there because the wait to see the kingston specialist was quite long. in hindsight i was completely misinformed on what i was going for, and therefore went mentally and physcially unprepared. i ended up having minor surgery. nothing to be concerned about, it was so minor that i didn't even realize it was surgery until later that night when i was admitted at hotel dieu for severe pain. the drive home to kingston from trenton was awful. the pain went down my legs to my feet. i felt like passing out and/or throwing up. i would affirm myself as i drove "i'm doing good. i'm doing good". i didn't return to work, but instead drove right home. i tried calling brendan at rona, i tried calling my mom. i tried calling the hospital, i tried calling my mom again, i tried calling my doctor, i tried calling brendan again. i spent 2 hours waiting for returned calls while i flailed around in pain and wept big tears. when i got a hold of my mom she came over to be with me, and stayed with me til brendan got home - he left work immediately and caught the bus home. by the time he arrived i'd spoken to my doctor who advised me to go to the hospital. she said "i don't know anything about surgery", i tried to tell her "it wasn't surgery" but it turns out it was and i didn't know it. she said to me "what did he give you for the pain" and i said "he didn't give me anything, he didn't even tell me there would be pain".

so anyways, b drove me to HDH, we didn't have to wait long. our doctor there was very nice, and funny too. he reminded us of jemaine from flight of the conchords. he tried to get a hold of the "surgeon" in trenton to no avail. while we waited for him to get back i told b about trenton. i'd never been there before and it made me think of melissa - trying to imagine here there in that town. "everything was smaller" i said to b "the houses were the size of this room". "i very much doubt that" he said. dr jemaine came back and told me that the pain would probably last another 2 to 4 days, and that he would prescribe some strong meds for me. so i was given some percocet and sent on my way with my prescription in hand. things were on the up and up. we went to classic where i got season 3 of big bang theory. i got a pita for dinner while my prescription was being filled, and slowly the pain was diminishing while the percocet kicked in. brendan could tell i was feeling better as my whines and heavy breathing lessened. i went to bed early and all was better.

until morning. at 4 am i took more pills (following the instructions) and went back to bed. but when i got up for work i started feeling very nauseated and got the sweats so i got back into bed and asked b to call marilyn and let her know i wasn't coming. the nausea got worse as the morning wore on. most of the day i layed completely still suppressing the need to throw up. i hadn't barfed in years nor did i want to then. the fight continued into the afternoon when i decided to move to the living room for some tv watching. but that's where the battle was lost. i threw up repeatedly over the course of the afternoon. thankfully it was mostly just water. i tried to be brave as i was all alone (b was at work again), but i cried a little bit. eventually i got an email from bren saying that she'd heard from garry that he had a similar experience with percocet and that you have to eat something with it (even though the instructions didn't say anything about that). so over the course of the afternoon i started making myself eat. i stopped barfing, but moved slowly and was kind of hunched over. i got into bed at 8:30 or 9 and soon was out for the count.

today has been better. my appetite is very small, but i'm not in pain and my stomach is returning to normal. it was a very crazy two day experience. hopefully the worst is behind me, i'll try to be more informed next time.

it takes a stiff upper lip to just hold up my face.